The next morning, Carlos and the others finally reached level 60, which meant Gabryell could take them to Stratholme to finish the painting step for Of Love and Family.
His forum post from the day before, explaining the Molten Core and Onyxia attunement chains, had sparked heated discussion across the server and become the hottest topic overnight.
Not long after the post went up, Burning Steppes had been packed with players working on the attunement quests. Finding elite dragonkin for Dragonkin Menace became extremely difficult, and plenty of players who could not tag anything started cursing Blizzard in chat.
With Burning Steppes overflowing, the number of players in the Eastern Plaguelands dropped by comparison.
After arriving at Light's Hope Chapel and picking up the Stratholme-related quests, Gabryell led his group straight toward the dungeon.
"Stratholme is split into two sections," he said. "The main gate leads to the Scarlet side, and the service entrance leads to the Undead side. The two areas are connected inside, but this time we're doing Scarlet side."
Although the two sides of Stratholme were connected, very few players cleared both in one run. Under normal circumstances, a group would choose one side and focus on that.
The Scarlet side was not as popular as the Undead side.
The reason was obvious.
The final boss of the Undead side was Baron Rivendare, and Baron Rivendare could drop Deathcharger's Reins, an extremely rare mount.
Because of that mount, Stratholme was full of eight- and ten-player mount-farming groups. For many players, doing one daily Rivendare attempt had practically become part of their routine.
The painting Gabryell's group needed was in the Archivist's room on the Scarlet side. If they wanted to be efficient, they had to enter through the main gate.
"Holy crap, why did my mana get so low?"
On the way there, OldSeven's hands got itchy, and he killed a Cursed Mage. His maximum mana instantly dropped by a huge amount.
"You idiot," Gabryell said. "You're cursed. Dispel it yourself."
The curses in Stratholme were incredibly annoying. If a solo caster who could not remove curses accidentally killed one of those mobs, their maximum mana would drop sharply for ten minutes.
Mages and Druids were fine, since they could remove curses.
But if Paladins, Priests, or Warlocks got hit by that curse, their combat power was basically cut in half for the next ten minutes.
The mobs in the Eastern Plaguelands were generally disgusting to deal with, which was why many players would rather go to Winterspring than quest here.
Of course, Silithus was even worse than the Eastern Plaguelands. There were too many elite mobs there, and one careless step could easily get a player killed.
They entered Stratholme through the main gate and stepped through the dungeon portal.
"Everyone sort yourselves into parties and go in."
There were more people today than yesterday, twenty in total. Since they needed to complete quests, they could only enter as five-player parties.
Gabryell's group had changed a little.
Carlos remained the main tank, Danielly took over as healer, and Lunatori moved to Nightlord's group to help them out. Hugo, who wanted to stay with Luna, followed her into Nightlord's party without even pretending otherwise.
Gabryell's three DPS were himself, Smooch, and DeathScum.
The other groups had also been adjusted slightly. DontPanicHealz and MushroomHunter had joined in and were split between Susie's and David's teams.
No one was benched, because a few people had not logged in.
Nightlord's group had Luna, Hugo, Coldhands, who had finally come online today, and Igor.
Igor had volunteered to switch groups for one very simple reason: he wanted to get away from Smooch. He did not dare share a party with her.
"Hahaha," Coldhands said. "Luna's here. My loot luck is saved."
He was the happiest one there. Being in the same party as a lucky hand like Luna made him feel blessed. He could already see top-tier gear flying toward him.
"Keep celebrating," Igor said. "I'm looting later."
With Carlos and Gabryell no longer there to restrain him, Igor was ready to unleash his cursed loot hand and touch the boss corpse himself.
"No!"
Coldhands nearly cried.
"No doesn't work," Igor said. "This time, I'm looting."
Since it was not Gabryell's own group, no one stopped him.
Everyone entered the dungeon amid laughter.
Running Stratholme as a five-man was not easy with their current gear. Fortunately, they were doing the Scarlet side this time, which was slightly easier than the Undead side.
As soon as they entered the dungeon, two packs of zombies were waiting ahead.
"Whoa, why did the door close?" DeathScum looked around in surprise. "We can't get out?"
"That's how the front section of Stratholme works," Gabryell said. "There's no way back. Either you die your way out, or you fight through to the service entrance and leave from there."
It was extremely nasty.
Once you went in, there was no retreat. You could not even run back out of the dungeon.
That was why, in the front section of Stratholme, players had to avoid extra pulls as much as possible. Otherwise, all they could do was wait for the wipe.
"Stay sharp," Gabryell said. "We don't have a Paladin with Divine Intervention in this group, so if we wipe, we're corpse-running."
For Stratholme, the best healer was actually a Priest.
Priests had one skill that was especially useful against elite undead mobs.
"Snowy, shackle one elite in a moment," Gabryell said. "We'll kill the other elite and the normal mobs first."
The zombie packs here usually had two elites with a group of normal mobs.
The normal mobs could be cleared quickly with AoE, but the elites had to be handled one at a time.
Two elites plus a group of normal mobs would put too much pressure on Carlos, so to be safe, Danielly would use Shackle Undead to lock one down. That would reduce pressure on both the tank and the healer.
"Mentor," Danielly suddenly said, sounding like a child who had done something wrong, "I messed up."
Gabryell asked, "What happened?"
"I embarrassed you. I don't know which skill locks down the elite."
That was not really her fault.
Shackle Undead only worked on undead mobs. In the minds of most Priests, it was like Mind Control or Mind Soothe: a situational skill that almost never made it onto the main action bar.
"It's called Shackle Undead," Gabryell said. "Look for it in your spellbook."
Shackle Undead was extremely powerful in the right place. It could lock an undead mob in place for a long time, making it a god-tier Priest skill in undead-heavy dungeons.
And it was not only useful here.
With Shackle Undead, Priests could solo farm Scholomance, farm certain summoned constructs, and farm Skin of Shadow. Gather a few Librams of Focus, turn them into Arcanum of Focus, and a skilled Priest could earn over a hundred gold an hour.
Danielly searched for a while, finally found Shackle Undead, and dragged it onto her action bar.
"I found it. You really know everything."
She truly admired Gabryell.
In her eyes, he seemed to know every class, every dungeon, and every trick in the game.
"Pick one elite and shackle it," Gabryell said.
Danielly selected an elite undead and cast Shackle Undead. Golden chains wrapped around the mob, pinning it in place.
Carlos, who had already been waiting, immediately moved in and used Challenging Shout to pick up the rest of the pack.
"Don't attack yet," Gabryell said. "Pull them back. Do not break the shackle."
If the shackled mob took damage, the control could break.
Carlos pulled the mobs back.
Gabryell stepped forward, cast Frost Nova, then followed with Cone of Cold and Arcane Explosion to begin AoEing.
"You guys focus the elite. I'll clear the trash."
To AoE the mobs, Gabryell had equipped Blade of Eternal Darkness.
This weapon was absurdly powerful in situations like this. Every Arcane Explosion could restore two to three hundred mana.
With mindless Arcane Explosion spam, he cleared the trash quickly, even faster than the others killed the elite.
Gabryell helped finish off the elite, then said, "Carlos, pull the shackled one. We'll keep pushing like this."
They advanced deeper into the dungeon step by step, all the way to the intersection patrolled by a stitched abomination.
"There's a Supply Crate," DeathScum said. "I'll open it."
He spotted the crate by the wall and immediately walked over.
Gabryell did not have time to warn him.
DeathScum had already reached it.
"Holy crap, bugs!"
It was a trapped Supply Crate.
A swarm of insects burst out and surrounded DeathScum, shredding his health bar. Panicking, he shouted for help.
"Ogabs, save me!"